By
declaring my conscientous objection on October 27 2001, I stated that
I would not perform military service, that I would not take part in
any army or similar hierarchical organization and that I would not
serve in the dissemination of militarist culture into social life.

Since
that date, especially taking into consideration the war frenzy that
the world has been swept into since September 11, I become more
confident with each passing day that I have made a right decision.
Because the terror
attacks and the ongoing atrocious wars everywhere in the world,
including the land we live in, demonstrate that a way of life that
excludes violence in its entirety is the only humane solution.

Since
armies are the tools for using legitimized violence, they are one of
the most important obstacles before a world devoid of violence. This
is because militaries owe their existence, their power and
sustainability to wars and to the probability of wars. And militaries
are, by nature, institutions that produce wars.

For
the military, there is no such thing as a state of peace. The periods
where there is no armed conflict, are merely intervals where they try
to universalize the tyranny they impose onto the society, that is, a
time period devoted to preparation for war and fighting against the
implementation of peace.

As
the ruling classes’ apparatus of violence, the military diffuses the
culture of obedience through military service. The individual who
becomes accustomed to taking orders and obeying without questions, not
only loses her/his independence but becomes an enemy to the idea of
independence. What differentiates a human being from a machine or a
well-trained dog is that her/his acts stem from his/her individual
will. So obeying without asking any questions, is far from being
humane, to say the least. Expecting unconditional obedience from
someone is equivalent to asking her/him to abandon his/her humanity.

Because
I find it important to lead a humane life and as an indispensible
precondition of this I feel that all humans should lead a humane life,
I declare once again that I will never take orders and I will never
give orders. I believe that discrimination and violence are crimes of
humanity and in the name of avoiding to commit this crime, I am
determined to not be a part of the military which is an apparatus of
violence based on hierarchy that imposes such hierarchical
constructionsover the
society, I am determined to disobey, and refuse to be transformed into
a murder machine by taking a training of dying and killing.

I
find it tragicomical and protest that, in this building that is placed
inside a military barracks, persons who carry military ranks see
themselves as having the right to make statements regarding my destiny
according to laws that bind them alone. I want the restriction on my
freedom to end immediately.